Unfulfilled Prophecies

Do They Signify a False Prophet?

Anti-Mormonism’s Scholarly Failures Series
Applying the Anti-Mormon Standard Rule for False Prophets.
By Ronnie Bray

Anti-Mormons regularly point to something they consider to have been a

prophecy made by the Prophet Joseph Smith and claim that because, they
say, it has not been fulfilled, that it is proof that Joseph Smith was a false
prophet.

IF this principle, the apparent failure of a prophecy to be fulfilled, marks any

prophet, seer, or revelator down as a false prophet, seer, or revelator, means
that everything he has ever prophesied or foretold is false whether or not is
has come to pass, THEN Latter-day Saints will happily accept that
judgement on condition that the same standard is applied to prophets in the
Holy Bible, so that if but one of their pronouncements is shown not to have
come to pass, then all that he has ever said and done must be totally rejected
as the work of a Satanically inspired false prophet who has never spoken for
God.

Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a
virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

This verse is regarded as a prophecy of Jesus' birth to a virgin. Virgin in this

verse is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word "almah,” which actually means
"young woman.” A young woman is not necessarily a virgin. "Bethulah"
would have been the correct word to use if the author meant virgin.

Isaiah 17:1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away

from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.

Damascus has been continuously inhabited and today has a population of

more than a million people. It has never been a ruinous heap.
Isaiah 19:4-5 And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel
lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the LORD of
hosts. And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted
and dried up.

The river is the Nile. The Nile is Egypt's greatest natural resource. It has
never failed, nor is it likely to do so.

Isaiah 19:18 In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the
language of Canaan, and swear to the LORD of hosts; one shall be called,
The city of destruction.

The Canaanite language, has never been spoken in Egypt, and is an extinct
language.

Isaiah 52:1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful
garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more
come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.

There have always been uncircumcised people living in Jerusalem, in

ancient times and even today. The Romans that occupied Jerusalem and
destroyed it in AD 70 were uncircumcised.

Ezekiel 29:10-11 Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy

rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the
tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia. No foot of man shall pass
through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be
inhabited forty years.

Neither in ancient times, down to this very day has Egypt been uninhabited
for forty years, or for any length of time.

Amos 9:15 And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be
pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy
God.
Israelites have often been torn out of their land, sometimes for many
centuries.

Jonah 3:4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he
cried, and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”

However, Nineveh was never overthrown. We are informed that this

prophecy failed because God changed his mind. God did change his mind
despite Malachi 3:6, Numbers 23:19 and Ezekiel 24:14 saying that God
never changes his mind.

Jonah 3:10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way;
and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them;
and he did it not.

Zechariah 11:12 And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price;
and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.

Matthew [27:9] quotes this verse incorrectly crediting the Prophet Jeremiah
with having written it.

Matthew 2:23 And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might
be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a
Nazarene.

The Old Testament is devoid of any such prophecy. How then could it be
fulfilled?

Matthew 12:5 Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the Sabbath days
the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless?

No Old Testament passage says anything like this.

Matthew 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all
these things be fulfilled.
Jesus says that the signs marking the end of the world in Matthew 24 would
transpire before the generation he addressed ended. That generation ended
1900 years ago, but the world has not ended, nor have all the signs been
actualised.

Matthew 27:9 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the
prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him
that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value.

Jeremiah did not speak this prophecy.

Matthew 26:64 Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto
you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of
power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

Jesus tells the high priest that he would see his Second Coming. The high
priest is dead, and Jesus hasn't returned.

Applying the simple standard that a failed prophecy indicates a false

prophet, we must then conclude without flinching that Isaiah, Ezekiel,
Amos, Jonah, Zechariah, Matthew, and even Jesus were false prophets and
nothing they said can be relied on, according to the Anti-Mormon Standard
Rule for False Prophets.